Latest / LifeAudio / The Built Different Podcast with Dr. Zach Clinton - Dr. Lee Warren: How to Renew Your Mind & Rewire Your Brain - The Neuroscience of Healing, Breaking Negative Thought Patterns, & Finding Hope Again, Ep. 326

Transcript

The Built Different Podcast with Dr. Zach Clinton - Dr. Lee Warren: How to Renew Your Mind & Rewire Your Brain - The Neuroscience of Healing, Breaking Negative Thought Patterns, & Finding Hope Again, Ep. 326 · LifeAudio

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Life Audio.
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Build Different is a production of the American Association of
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Christian Counselors. To support this podcast and learn how you
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: can help us to promote all our biblical content, spread
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: the gospel, and provide mental health resources and training to
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: people everywhere, just go to aaccfoundation.org. Again, that's aaccfoundation.org. Hey everybody,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: welcome back into the Build Different podcast. I'll be your
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: host today, Dr. Zach Clinton, and I just want to
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: begin by thanking you so much for taking the time
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: and making us a part of your day. If you
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: like what you hear today, make sure you hit that
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: subscribe button. It means a lot as we continue building
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: a real community here at Build Different, and leave us
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: a review. I read them, I appreciate your feedback, and
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: I always love hearing how these conversations are impacting your life.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I also want you to know today before we begin...
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: that Built Different is proudly sponsored by Liberty University. Liberty
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: University has impacted my life greatly. My friend, I'm a
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: graduate and a big believer... in what Liberty University has
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: to offer you. The vision of Dr. Jerry Falwell Sr.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: is alive and well... and I believe it's stronger than
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: ever before. Did you know that LU offers over 600
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: online programs... taught by experts who understand your calling... and
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: support you to help you reach it? And while the
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: path to higher education has changed over the years... One
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: thing has never changed. That's our mission to train champions
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: for Christ, whether on campus, online, or around the world.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: All you have to do is go to liberty.edu. Again,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: that's www.liberty.edu forward slash built different to start your journey
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: to personal growth and professional fulfillment today. All right, my friend,
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: let's dive into today's conversation with a very special guest. Hello, everybody.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Welcome back into the Build Different Podcast. As always, we'll
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: be your host today, Dr. Zach Clinton.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: Dr.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Tim Clinton.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: And we cannot wait for today's conversation with a very
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: special guest. Welcoming him back to the show here on
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: the Build Different Podcast is Dr.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Lee Warren.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: You know, throughout this entire week here at the Lowe's
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Arlington Hotel for our AACC 2026 Mega National Christian Counseling
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Conference that has been centered on faith and flourishing. We've
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: had some of the brightest minds in the world, quite literally.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, people from all over, from when it was
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: coming to clinical social work, to neuroscientists, to neurosurgeons that
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: are taking the stage, to human flourishing experts. It's been
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: remarkable to see. But right here sitting with us is
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: a man that God is doing something really special, influential,
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: and impactful through. Let me read you his bio briefly.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Dr.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Lee Warren is a neurosurgeon, an Iraq war veteran, a
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: best-selling author. and a speaker who explores the intersection of neuroscience, faith, trauma,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: and hope. After experiencing combat trauma and the devastating loss
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: of his son, Mitch, which we'll dive into today, Dr.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Warren began applying what he knew about the brain to
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: his own journey through grief. He's the author of Hope
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: is the First Dose, I've Seen the End of You,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: and The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery. Today, he teaches
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: people how to Harness neuroplasticity, intentional thinking, and biblical truth
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: to renew their minds and transform their lives.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: Dr.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Lee, my friend, thank you for joining us.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: What a delight.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: What an honor to have you.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: We are humbled that you would be here with us.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: I'm so grateful to have another conversation with you because
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: after our first one on the podcast, I was telling
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: everybody about you. And it seems like everybody's been doing
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: the same thing because I've been watching what God has
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: been doing in and through your life, across social media platforms,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: all of the different places you've been able to get
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: interviewed on. I mean, it's... It's been remarkable.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: It's blowing up.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Lee, I got to ask, what is the last couple
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: of weeks and months been like for you and your family?
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: It's been crazy to see every day God's doing something,
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: and we're just kind of trembling at what's coming next
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: because he just keeps opening doors we never saw. There's
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: a scripture that says, when God opens a door, nobody
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: can shut it. And that's what it feels like. We're
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: being just... The message is getting out, and people are
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: seeing that they're not stuck with the brain they were
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: born with, and they're buying into it. And I just...
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: tell people all the time, you can change your life
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: if you're ready to change your mind. And all of
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: a sudden, it seems like a million people are ready
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: to talk about it. So it's been amazing.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: At the heart of a lot of your work, when
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: it comes to this life-changing art of self-brain surgery, you
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: really help people distinguish the difference between the brain and
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: the mind and our thought life and our beliefs. Speak
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: to that just up front as we dive into this conversation,
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: because that's really at the core of everything we'll be discussing.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: It is.
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: I think it's the most important thing we need to
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: understand because our culture is teaches us that we're the
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: product of our genetics, our parents, our upbringing, and the
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: things that happen to us, and that our brain becomes
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: what it is because of life and genes, and you
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: can break it, but you can't really fix it. You
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: have to manage it and deal with it. That's why
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: we see so many people adopting what they believe to
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: be an identity. This is how I am. This is
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: what's happened to me. It becomes who I am and
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: not what happened. But neuroscience is finally catching up to
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: what Scripture said all along, that your brain changes constantly
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: throughout your life. The reason that happens is that your
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: mind and your brain are not the same thing, which
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: Christians really intellectually at least should understand because we all
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: know when we die, there's some part of us that
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: doesn't die. Your brain does, but you don't. So obviously
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: you're not your brain, right? And so the part of
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: us that's made in God's image is not our body.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: He doesn't have a body like we do. It's our mind.
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: We're the product of an immaterial God that has given
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: us an immaterial soul. And the Bible conflates these terms, soul, mind, heart, brain,
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: not brain, soul, mind, and heart. and spirit and so
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: christians understand that the part of us that lives forever
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: is not our brain it's our mind and neuroscience is
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: starting to show us now with functional imaging that when
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: you think about stuff your brain reacts to it and
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: does something different in response to your thinking not the
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: other way around and so it's dramatic when you understand
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: that that you're not stuck the way you've been as
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: soon as you're ready to think differently and that's why
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: the bible is always telling us renew your mind take
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: capital take your thoughts captive made in god's image in
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: a new way every day renewed day by day so
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: we're not stuck we're not hopeless as soon as you're
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: ready to believe that because your brain really listens to
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: what you think and becomes what you think about and
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: so that's why i think it's so powerful.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: There's a real battle for the mind absolutely constantly we're
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: we're pressed at every turn if you will and as
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: a man thinketh again in his heart so he is
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: yeah uh in this battlefield for the mind lee um
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Everybody has all kinds of thoughts.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: You know, that life experiences, everything begins to just kind
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: of process and you put things through that sort of filter,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: if you will. And so they get lodged in there
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: and we've got memories, all kinds of things just come
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: together and events that trigger things. But we also know
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: that some of life's most Difficult and meaningful lessons are
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: learned in the valleys. You know that in those dark
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: places where it's like everything gets blown up and you're
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: forced to think your way through this thing or try
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: to make sense out of something. The old Puritans would
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: call it the valley of vision. You know that when
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: you're down in there. And Lee, I think a lot
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: of where and what you are doing and processing and
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: sharing is is coming out of some of that. Can
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: you take us into that for a moment and how
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: God used that to shape you, even though you've got
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: this brilliant mind, you understand all this dynamic, you know that,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: but there's that piece that began to really just anchor you.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: It started for me in the Iraq war. So I
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: was deployed in 2005 to a combat hospital, a tent
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: hospital in Iraq and had a hundred mortar and rocket
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: attacks while I was there, did 200 brain surgeries in
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: that environment and really saw it day by day, the
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: worst things that humans can do to each other and
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: in the context of also being exposed to physical danger
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: at the same time. And so even though I was
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: a neuroscientist and practicing neurosurgeon, I came home from the
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: war with my own brain telling me unreliable things. And
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: I would recognize that it kind of came out a
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: few years after the war, actually. And I would be
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: in a safe place, a grocery store or someplace completely safe.
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: And I would hear a sound and all of a
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: sudden I was back in the war.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Triggered, boom.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: And I had to tell myself that my brain was unreliable.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: My brain was telling me things that were objectively not true.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: And so it took a long time to sort of
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: work through all that and get back in control of that.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: But I figured out that you can, and you can
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: by reminding yourself of what's true. Again, the Bible tells
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: us to take our thoughts captive. Like don't let your
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: brain boss you around. Your mind can take charge of
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: that process. So just as we were coming out of
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: that and my wife, Lisa helped me begin to unpack
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: that really by journaling and writing and starting to, to,
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: put down on paper the things I was feeling and
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: processing them. And right as we were starting to finally
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: feel like that was all in the past, our 19-year-old son, Mitch,
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: was murdered and stabbed to death in 2013. And then
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: I was right back in it. Except the difference this
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: time was that before, when I'd gone to war, I
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: turned towards God when I was hurting. And this time
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: I got really mad at him. And so I had
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: this secondary experience of not only being traumatized and hearing
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: those thoughts and feelings again, but now I'm not not
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: really knowing what I could do with it in terms
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: of turning back to God. I was mad. I was angry.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: And so I had to recognize that nothing felt true
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: for a little while. My brain wasn't telling me the truth.
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: I didn't know if my faith was true. I was
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: filled with doubt, and I felt bad about that because
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: I was a lifelong student of the Scripture. And so
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: I had to figure out a way to find out
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: what was true again, and I recognized that the hope
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: that I had was based on the idea that I
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: would get to see Mitch again in the resurrection. And
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: so I needed that to be true. So I started
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: searching scripture for promises that I could test out before then.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: And the first one was somebody sent us a scripture,
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: Psalm 34, 18, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted,
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: binds up their wounds. And I found that every day
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: when i was at my worst moment lisa would walk
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: in the room or somebody would send me a text
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: or somebody would send me a scripture or jesus calling
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: would speak right to the event we were dealing with
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: right then and the lord was close to me i
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: felt them in the presence of other people and the
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: word and and one by one i started grabbing onto
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: those promises that i could test The Bible says test me,
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: you know, test me. Taste and see that I'm good.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: And I kept testing him, and he turned out to
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: be with me when I was brokenhearted. And so I
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: just used those promises as rungs on the ladder to
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: start climbing towards the ultimate one of resurrection and redemption.
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: And I found that when I did that, when I
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: reconciled God's word up against the feelings and thoughts that
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: I was having, God's word always turned out to be true.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: And so that led us back. I started looking at
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: science and how my practice was transformed in different ways,
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: testing out my faith too. And I just found my
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: way back to hope using God's word up against my
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: thoughts and feelings. Wow.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: So I'm thinking about, and I want to make sure
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: that you can clarify if I'm wrong on this, but
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: what I'm really hearing people say, and what I've kind
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: of dubbed in my own mind is that it's really
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: not about the suffering.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: That's why people stay stuck.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: It's about the stories that they begin to believe about God,
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: about themselves, about other people in spite of the suffering.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: And so I'm just beginning to think about the brain
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: and the mind and again, that connection and then how
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: it begins to actually happen on the behavior in the body.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: You shared a story in our last conversation where you
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: talked about in the very lowest moments of your life,
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: somebody was saying like, Lee, you got to get back up.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: You got to get back to work. And there was
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: a moment when you saw a woman. who was actually
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: on the table and there was something going on. You
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: were able to see her brain when they told her
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: to think about something negative as compared to thinking about
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: something positive and the difference. Share that if you would.
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: This is about a month after Mitch died. We had
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: just gone back to work. We had a private practice
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: and had to go back to work at some point.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: We had 10 employees and just the business means you
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: got to go back to work at some point. And
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: our office at the time was in a research center
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: at Auburn University and where they were doing this functional MRI,
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: really world-class research on brain imaging. And we got invited,
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: Lisa and I, she ran our practice then. We got
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: invited to a meeting in the scanner, and we watched
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: this research happening. And they put a woman in, and
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: they had earphones on her so they could communicate with her.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: And they said, Mrs. Johnson, think about the worst thing
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: you've ever felt in your life. And we had scanned
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: her brain already, so we knew what her brain was
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: doing before she changed what she was thinking about. And
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: she kind of furled up her brow and thought about
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: whatever it was that was the worst moment of her life.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: And I was thinking about mine. It was a month
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: before with Mitch. And we saw her brain's fear center,
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: the amygdala, light up in response to what she was
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: thinking about. It wasn't already lighting up. She thought about something,
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: and then it reacted. So her brain reacted to her mind.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: I saw this with my eyes. And then her physiology changed.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: Her blood pressure went up. Her heart rate went up.
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: All the vital signs reacted as if she was in danger.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Her brain was telling her that she was in danger.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: And then they said, Mrs. Johnson, stop thinking about that
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: and now start thinking about the best day of your life,
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: your happiest memory. Very quickly, Zach, her fear center turned off.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: Frontal lobes came online. Other parts of her brain lit
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: up that are associated with better feelings. And then her
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: blood pressure and heart rate came down just like that.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: Her brain responded to her mind. Her body responded to
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: her brain. And we saw in real time that mind
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: and brain are not the same thing. And Lisa said,
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: that reminds me of Philippians 4. And I said, what
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: do you mean? And she said, well, it says think
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: about better stuff and you won't be as anxious. Think
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: about gratitude and you won't be afraid. And think about
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: what's noble and true and good. And that's exactly what
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: we saw. Brain and mind are not the same thing.
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: And so right in that moment, I'm not a charismatic guy.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: I was raised in a really kind of fundamentalist tradition.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: We don't talk about the Holy Spirit very much back then.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: And in that moment, though, the Lord said, Lee, what
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: do you do when you do brain surgery on somebody?
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: You intentionally test. change the structure of their brain for
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: the purpose of making their life better. And I said, yeah,
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: that's right. And he said, that's what she just did.
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: She just changed the structure of her brain in order
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: to make her life better. And if you're going to
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: feel better about losing Mitch, you've got to change how
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: you're thinking about this event. You've got to change from
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: the story being it's all over to being there's a
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: coming renewal and a reunion. And you've got to think
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: about the things that you're grateful for about his life.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: And when you're doing that, it's surgery on your own brain.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: It's self-brain surgery. And that's where all this work for
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: the last 13 years, I've been pursuing how science and
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: faith can work together to reveal things that God said
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: that are true and try to give people that hope.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: And that really became my purpose. And as Victor Frankel said,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: I think you and I talked about this too, like
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: suffering stops being suffering when you give it purpose, when
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: you find out what the meaning behind it is. And
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: for me, it was the purpose of my suffering wasn't
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: to be a bereaved father, broken and alcoholic or lost
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: and divorced and all the things that happen to people
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: who lose kids. It was to be able to give
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: voice to things that I was feeling and explain them
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: scientifically and scripturally to other people that didn't have that
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: background so they could know that it was really true,
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: that you can get better after these things. The trauma
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: is not what happened to you. It's the story you
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: tell yourself in response to what happened to you because
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: your brain organizes itself around what you think about. And
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: so if your thoughts are, life's over for me, it's
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: never going to get better than this, I'll never be
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: okay again, that's what's going to come true for the
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: most part. Because your brain is going to believe that
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: story and it's going to start organizing your life and
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: filtering for that to be the case. And God says
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: it doesn't have to be that way. If you're ready
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: to change your mind, you have to take command of
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: your thoughts. And that's what we did that day in
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: the scanner. And for me, I think God needed to
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: show it to me scientifically because that's how I think
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: about things. And so I think he comes to us
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: in the language that we speak in the background that
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: we have and shows us things. And that moment was
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: the moment that it began to turn around for me.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Hey, my friend, before we jump back into today's conversation,
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: I just want to remind you that Built Different is
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: proudly sponsored by Liberty University. This partnership means a lot
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: to me personally. You know, I was born and raised
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: in Lynchburg, Virginia, and I've watched Liberty grow tremendously over
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: the years, but I've also experienced firsthand the impact this
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: university can have on a life. I graduated from Liberty.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: I played four years of Division I baseball here. I
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: met some of my closest friends and most influential mentors here.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: I met my wife, Evelyn, here, and most importantly, Liberty
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: became part of the story God used to deepen my
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: relationship with Jesus Christ. Today, I have the privilege of
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: continuing that story by serving Liberty Athletics and investing in
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: the lives and mental health of our student athletes. That's
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: why I believe so deeply in Liberty's mission to train
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: champions for Christ. With more than 16,000 residential students and
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: 600 online programs, Liberty gives you the opportunity to pursue
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: your education alongside faculty who want to help equip you
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: for your calling and on campus, online, and around the world.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: To learn more and to take that next step, all
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: you have to do is go to liberty.edu forward slash
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: built different today.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: A lot of people have often said the mind can
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: be a very dark and turbulent place, or the mind
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: can be pretty free and beautiful and creative. You know that?
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: For a lot of people, because of life, whatever has
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: come their way, they say, if you know what goes
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: on up here, you would understand. In other words, this
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: isn't okay. And I hear that I need to do
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: thought stopping and thought replacement and those kind of different things.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: But for me, it's hard to do that because, again,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: I fight it.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: What do you do?
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: How do you.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Begin to just help people kind of calm down that
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: rehearsing and that room rumination stuff that often just gets
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: ahold of them. You know that I think in, in
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: neuroscience or interpersonal neuroscience, this, this, this like the brain
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: begins to develop writing and more patterns, things that quote
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: wire together, fire together type thing. You know that speak
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: to some of that and how you approach people who they're, they're,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: they're in a battle, right?
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: Well, there's this thing called Hebb's Law we talk about
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: all the time, neuroplasticity, this idea that Donald Hebb gave
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: us of neurons that fire together, wire together. And that
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: happens in response to the brain making things more automatic
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: over time the more we think about them. And that's
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: God's design for it.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: It's almost like muscle memory in sports.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: It's muscle memory, it's brain memory. But the reason God
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: gave us that is so we can use our thought processes,
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: our mind, our mental energy to do more important things
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: than You don't remember what buttons on the calculator to
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: push and that sort of thing. So your brain will
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: program and automate things. Unfortunately, though, it works whether we
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: direct it or not. And if you're sitting around ruminating
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: and thinking about toxic things, your brain begins to automate
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: that stuff where it comes out of you when you're
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: not doing it intentionally. So people begin to feel like
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: this is just how I am because they've basically given
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: their brain consent to automate those things. and turn that
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: into what kind of brain they have. So the fix
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: for it is, I think starts, at least in my life,
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: it starts with the morning quiet time where I spend
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: some time telling my brain what I want it to
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: do in response to various stresses that I might encounter
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: that day. There's this thing in aneurysm surgery we do
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: in the brain called proximal control. We're going to talk
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: about that in a little while, where if you're going
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: to deal with a brain aneurysm, you don't just wait
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: for it to rupture and then try to figure out
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: where it's bleeding. You find the artery that it comes
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: from and you expose it so that you can control
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: the parent artery and then go deal with the aneurysm
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: in a safe way. What most of us do with
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: our thinking is we just stumble into some situation that
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: sets us off. And then all those old automations come
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: out because we've neurons that fire together, wire together. We've
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: done it before a million times. This is what I do.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: This is what my family does. When we're mad, we yell,
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: we punch walls, we drink alcohol, we do whatever because
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: that's how we are, right? But it actually is just
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: the way you've automated your brain. And so if you
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: spend time in the morning and you think about your
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: day and my kids are going to be, we're going
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: to be running late for school and my boss is
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: going to yell at me and this is going to
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: happen and that's going to happen. And you think about
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: those events and And you tell your brain, okay, when
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: it does happen, instead of yelling like I normally do,
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: what if I did this instead? And then you use
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: the fact that your brain doesn't know the difference between
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: what's actually happening and what you're just imagining. Your brain
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: will automate, even if you're just imagining things or ruminating
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: about them. So you can use, instead of rumination, you
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: can use sort of a meditative practice to go ahead
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: of that event and wire those new responses. And this
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: has been studied really well in athletes and concert pianists
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: and fighter pilots where visualizing a performance that's coming up
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: when they actually perform it, they're something like 22% better
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: at it. Same thing happens in our thought processes in
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: our daily lives. So if you're frustrated with the way
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: your brain behaves when you're under stress, go ahead of
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: it and think through the day and program some of
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: those things ahead of time. And then when you're under pressure,
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: you're going to behave, you're going to perform better than
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: if you hadn't run those reps ahead of time, just
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: like an athlete.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Well, we consistently rehearse, right? Cognitive rehearsal, visualization, all of
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: these things, putting these things into practice every single day.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: We talk a lot about rumination is the pathological obsession
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: with our pain. In our last conversation, you said how grief, trauma,
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: pain has a way of narrowing our vision. And you
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: said that hope has a way of widening it again.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: I'm just thinking about for somebody out there today who
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: they have those memories though that keep on getting triggered.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: I think about what you mentioned in our last conversation
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: too about going down and sneaking into Mitch's room. And
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: you mentioned, you remember the day that you couldn't smell
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: him on his clothes anymore, right? Like that, that thought
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: triggers something. Think about, you mentioned, um, watching a show
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: operation kill and it taking you back onto the battlefield,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: like boom, it triggered something. The first thought isn't always
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: in our control, but the second thought is I'm just
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: thinking about God's word doesn't call us to ruminate. It
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: calls us to renovate. It calls us to take every
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: thought captive. It calls us to, submitted under the authority
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: of Christ. It calls us to think on these things.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: You have all of these lessons and these laws within
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: this book, The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery. I'd love
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: for you, Lee, just to share a couple of the
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: most significant ones with our audience, so that way they
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: know how they can begin to renew their mind.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: Well, I think the very first thing that people really
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: need to understand is that these are not just sort
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: of self-help ideas, nice ideas. These are structural, mechanical things
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: that change in your brain. Like you really structurally, surgically
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: change the brain. So when I talk about self-brain surgery,
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: it's not a metaphor. Like this is the mechanism of
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: how God allows us to do the thing he said.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: When God says something, it's true all the way down
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: from sort of metaphor to medicine to mechanism, all the
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: way down. And so I gave you these, what we
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: call the 10 commandments of self-brain surgery. These are just
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: lessons I've learned from neuroscience and scripture. And the first
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: one is, if I'm going to ask you, to stop
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: being a victim of your thoughts and start operating on
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: them like a surgeon, then you have to do what
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: surgeons do, which is we take an oath not to
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: commit malpractice against our patient. So the first one is
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: don't commit malpractice against yourself. So we relentlessly refuse to
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: participate in our own demise. Like just stop doing stuff
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: that you know to be harmful to yourself. If we
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: could eliminate that in your clients, like stop doing the
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: things that you already know is going to hurt you tomorrow.
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: Don't drink too much tonight. Don't yell at your wife.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: Don't get on your phone and not talk to your kids,
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: that tomorrow you're going to regret that. So stop doing that.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: Tomorrow is going to be a lot better, right? So
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: quit committing malpractice against yourself. That's number one. Number two
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: and three are really important. Based on research, feelings are
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: not facts. They're chemical events in my brain. So most
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: everybody in this culture today says you feel your feelings,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: you live your truth, you do your thing, you follow
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: your heart. We believe that we're supposed to honor and
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: protect our feelings and get other people to not violate them.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: But research is pretty clear. Something like two-thirds of the
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: things we automatically feel and think turn out not to
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: be really true or accurate. They're skewed towards negativity or
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: they're looked at from the wrong perspective. So if you
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: just get ahead of that and understand that a lot
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: of the things that I automatically think and feel are
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: not true and you stop reacting to things that aren't true, again,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: you're going to eliminate a whole bunch of the things
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: that cause you trouble in your life. So Quit committing
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: malpractice and stop automatically reacting to things. You guys call
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: it metacognition, where you get outside the thought and feeling.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: You operate on it instead of letting it operate on you.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: And so then the fourth one is this must believe
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: my mind and my brain are not the same thing.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: If I can separate that and I can truly believe it,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: then that gives me an ability to operate my system
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: as somebody with some power, some operating skill instead of
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: being a victim of whatever my brain decides to do
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: that day. Because so many people I see this on
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: social media all the time. I can't change. This is
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: how I am. It's hopeless for me. It's been too long.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: I'm too old. Well, neuroplasticity works until the day you die.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: It works the day you're born and it works the
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: day you die. God gave it to you for your
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: whole life. You can change your brain at any age.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: You may have to work harder at it if you're
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: ADHD or if you've had some really traumatic experience. You
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: may need a professional to do that. But it is
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: happening inside your brain whether you direct it or not.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: So direct it instead of being a victim of it.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: So there's six other ones. But those are the commandments
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: that really, if you can buy into them and start
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: to practice them, they give you something to do. And
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: all of us know that hope requires action and agency, right?
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: It requires this ability to believe that you can get
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: there from here and that there's something you can do
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: to do that thing. And so you have agency in
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: the process. You're not a victim of it anymore.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Connect then the thoughts and the feelings that then flow
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: with it. You know what I'm saying? Because there's a
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: lot of heaviness or people carry a lot of emotional
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: weight with them. but it's so freeing whenever you can
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: get this response piece going in play.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: Right. That's right. So thoughts and feelings, again, obey neuroplasticity.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: So the more you train your brain to reject negative
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: thinking and replace it with God's truth or something, at
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: least it is true. Then the more your brain will
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: automatically serve up more reliable things to you. Like your
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: default mode network, the part of your brain that is
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: active when you're not actively thinking about anything, an untrained
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: default mode network is the me show. It's, all the
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: bad stuff that happened to me in the past, all
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: the ways I got hosed, all the ways people mistreat me,
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: and all the ways in the future it's going to
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: be the same as it always has been. That's what
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: your default mode does. But if you train your default
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: mode and other networks begin to sort of influence it,
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: and all of a sudden you're hearing more positive, more
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: accurate baseline thinking and feeling. It's more influenced by things
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: that are true instead of things you're just ruminating on
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: or worrying about. And so your brain can change even
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: the way it serves up those baseline thoughts and feelings.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: I'm just thinking about the pain that you've gone through,
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: you and your wife, Lisa, and just the challenge, the
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: loss of your son, Mitch. And I just can imagine
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: that there are still days when those thoughts come back,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: when they begin to flood your mind, when you miss them,
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: when you see something, hear a song, you smell something,
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: you remember something. And we're just like, it's, it's a
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: tougher day. Nobody has a great day every day, but
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: it's that mindset of when those days come, I'm just
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: interested personally, Where do you take your thoughts and how
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: do you begin to take them captive to really begin
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: to recognize, you know what? Yes, I can remember him.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: And yes, I can honor him. And yes, I can
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: live for him. And yes, I can still love him. Yes,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I can grieve him. All of these things, but still
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: hold on to truth. Take us into that.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: So there's a two things can be true at once
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: thing that you learn after grief and after any kind
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: of major trauma, I think. Because as we talked about before,
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: if the cameras that they're looking at us through, if
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: they zoom in really tight on your face, that's all
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: you can see. But it's not all that's out there.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: There's still a lot of stuff in this room besides
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: what the camera might show us. And grief has this
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: way of taking you into that story. And even 13
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: years after it happens, that'll happen to me sometimes. I'll
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: get really down a rabbit trail of thought. I won't
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: be paying attention. And before long, I'm really sad and
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: I'm weeping again. I'm really angry about it. And then
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: I'll remember, like, Okay, it is true. It'll always be
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: true that my son's gone. But my life is showing
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: day by day that God's promises are true. And I
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: can tell you, 13 years later, every single thing that
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: God says he will do for you in response to loss,
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: he keeps his word. Even the hard ones, like the
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: first day after my son died, somebody came over to
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: my house and they said, you know, God's going to
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: work this for good. He quoted Romans 8, 28 to me.
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: I wanted to hit him. Like, that's not a good
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: thing to say to somebody the day after their son dies.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: It's not. But 13 years later, I can tell you
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: that the scripture actually says not that it will be good,
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: but that God will work things together for the good
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: of those that love him and are called according to
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: purpose to conform them to Christ. So what he does
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: is he takes this hard thing, and if you're willing,
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: he makes you more like Christ through it, which is
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: always good for you and always allows you to see
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: things in a different perspective and always reminds you that
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: there's going to come a day when that renewal and
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: resurrection and reunion is going to occur. And so now
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: when the hard days hit, I take a beat. I
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: take a minute and I sit with it and I
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: remember the things that hurt. And then I remember the
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: ways that his life made my life better and continues
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: to do so. And then I'll get on Instagram and
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: somebody will say, I'm so grateful for you, son Mitch,
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: that because of what you processed, now you're sharing things
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: that are helping me in my life. And I'm so
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: thankful for him. And that keeps him alive. And so again,
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: now there's legacy on top of that loss and not
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: just meaningless and purposelessness. And so I try to take
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: it and find a way to zoom that camera back
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: out away from the thing that's the only thing that
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: feels true in that moment. And I try to remember
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: that more than one thing are true. More than one
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: thing is always true. And so even after 13 years, yes,
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: I have bad moments. And it's not occasionally, it's sort
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: of always. It's something that's always there, but you can
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: always process it in the context of all the other
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: things that are still true it's really hard to do
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: at first it gets easier over time if you let
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: god do it he will.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah i think of james chapter one that we can
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: consider a pure joy not because of the trial but
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: because of what the trial can produce in and through
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: us if we allow god to let it Romans 5,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: 3 to 5. I know it's one of your favorite
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: passages of Scripture that we can glory in our suffering
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: because suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance produces character. Character produces hope.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: That definition you've already given about hope, it's one of
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: my favorites. You simplified it so well that hope is
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: the realization that I can get there from here.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Just to the person out there, Lee, who's struggling today,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: what's one final word of hope that maybe you would
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: want them to hear in a moment of need whether
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: it's about God's peace, about His power, about His people.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: What's just something that they need to hear in this
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: moment to access the abundant life that He came to
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: offer us?
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: I want you to know that the story that culture
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: is telling you right now, that you're easily broken, that
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: you can't really be repaired, and that certain things can
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: happen in your life that can redefine who you are
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: and what you're capable of, isn't true. That your God
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: designed you and created you on purpose with a purpose,
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: The brain that is designed to heal, it's not designed
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: to stay broken. And that scripture, Romans 5 through 5,
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: is true neurobiologically and neuroanatomically too because the part of
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: your brain that's involved in willpower and emotional shifting from
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: one network to another, one state to another, is the
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: same part of your brain. And we know now that
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: when you go through hard things and you navigate them,
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: that cingulate gyrus of your brain engages Hebb's Law and
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: gets more robust and you get better at doing hard things.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: That's where that scripture comes true. that suffering produces endurance,
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: a grit and willpower come from your anterior cingulate. And
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: your anterior cingulate can't get stronger unless you've gone through
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: something hard. And so it's true. God is keeping his
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: promise in the wiring of your brain that when you
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: go through something hard, he will use that to make
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: you stronger. Because unfortunately, all of us are going to
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: go through more than one hard thing. And that's why
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: the back half of that verse is so important, because
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: he gives you endurance. Your brain gets more durable. And
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: then that begins to change your character because you begin
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: to look into the future and say, okay, hard stuff's
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: going to happen. And I'm the kind of person that
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: can actually navigate something hard. And then that begins to
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: give you hope because you'll look into the future and
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: know that no matter what comes along, my brain's going
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: to support me in navigating through this. And I'm going
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: to get stronger as a result of it. And it's
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: going to feel awful. And it's going to narrow my
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: vision for a while, but it won't be the first
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: time I've been through something hard. My brain's designed for it.
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: My God is with me in it. And I'm going
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: to get through it.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: through him that loved us.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Amen.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: It's hard to go there, though.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Man, that's hard work, real hard work. But when you
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: taste it and that stream of hope begins to flow,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: it brings new life. It does.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: Amen.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: It helps set you free.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's for freedom that Christ has come to set
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: us free.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Lee Warner, friend, I cannot. Thank you enough for what
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: God's continuing to do into your life. I know, like
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: we said, things are continuing to blow up, and I
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: pray that they would continue to.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Amen.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: Because I believe that God is using you as an anointed,
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: appointed ambassador for such a time as this, my friend.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Where can our audience go? I know you're not hard
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: to find, but where can they go to find out
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: more about you, maybe to pick up a copy of
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: this new book, The Life-Changing Art of Self-Brain Surgery?
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: Just drleewarren.com, drleewarren.com, everything, the podcast, the newsletter, the social,
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: it's all there.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Lee, thank you for joining us. I can't wait to
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: take the stage with you in a few moments.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Thank you so much.
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: Our built-in audience, as always, thank you so much for
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: being a part of today's episode. What a gift it
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: is to learn from such bright minds, to remind us
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: that we can access the peace, the power, and the
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: mind of Christ every single day. Put on these things. Love, hope, compassion, peace, joy,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: and I promise good things. They might not feel like it,
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: but they will be on the road ahead. As always,
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: thanks for joining us. We love being a part of
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: your life.